


Dreams, after the end

by Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Complete, F/M, Gen, Introspection, Leia Organa-centric, One Shot, POV Leia Organa, Past Leia Organa/Han Solo, Stand Alone, close to a friendship fic, not very shippy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:00:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21661819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome/pseuds/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome
Summary: Leia is adrift after the evacuation of Yavin IV. She grieves for her planet and her past, all while wondering what her future may hold. A chance encounter with the spy everyone assumes to be dead gives her much needed hope.
Relationships: Cassian Andor & Leia Organa, Cassian Andor/Leia Organa
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	Dreams, after the end

After the evacuation of Yavin IV, there are any number of pressing matters. Everyone needs something from Leia, it seems. There’s troops to give orders to, the wounded to check in on, the officers to share crucial information with. And in that chaos, no one thinks to ask Leia… well…

They ask her plenty of things. _What’s next? Do we have a plan? How do we know the Empire isn’t tracking us? Where will be our base? Can we really trust that smuggler? Did your father give you any guidance? Is Skywalker a Jedi, truly?_

So perhaps it’s not what they ask, but what they don’t ask.

_It’s all over,_ she thinks. _I have no place here. I have no planet, no home. I have no role to play now._

So, perhaps that's why no one asks her how she’s doing. They don’t want to know.

She tells herself not to expect anything. She doesn’t deserve it, any more than she deserves to be one of the leaders, de facto elected by virtue of what, her rank? Her appearance? Surely not her age, as that’s far too young to stand at the command table next to the grizzled veterans of the Clone Wars. Perhaps its her education, her posh accent fooling everyone ito her intelleneg. It's surely not her military prowess, given how she’d failed them all.

Failed the Rebellion and failed Alderaan. She should have never let herself be captured. Should have fought harder. Should have…

What? Stolen Vader’s lightsaber and struck him down? She’s dreamed of it a thousand times, but dreaming and doing are two very different things.

* * *

Home One is a huge ship, large enough to get lost in, wandering down hallways and corridors, which is Leia’s exact goal tonight. The last thing she wants is to go back to her too-empty room, her too-quiet quarters, which she knows are far finer than anyone else’s on this whole damn ship. Because they have to treat her as a _princess_ , they say. Because she’s _their hope._

Which is all well and good, except for the fact that she herself has no hope. Not anymore. She tried so hard, for so long, and in the end… they still had to evacuate. Alderaan was still lost. Did it matter that the Death Star was destroyed? When the Empire could simply build another? Did it matter that Darth Vader might be dead when the Emperor held so much power himself?

Leia has none of the answers, and no one to turn to and ask them. Because she is a figurehead, which means she is alone.

And Alderaan is gone, so she will always be alone.

Her time as anything _real_ as a living, breathing princess, all of that is over. There were stories her mother used to tell her, stories of princesses and rescues and hopes, but they always ended the moment the princess was safely brought back to her palace.

Here she is, safe, and yet, not home at all, despite the name of the ship.

Home, and yet, homeless.

Safe, and yet, lost.

She has reached the end and she doesn’t know what could ever come next.

* * *

She wanders that night, looking more like a ghost than a being, a slip of a figure in a white dress, tiny and fragile and yet stronger than durasteel. It’s the strength, she thinks, that is often more a burden than the fragility. It’s the strength that refused to yield a hundred times before, the strength that led her toward the Rebellion. Her strength though, doomed her planet.

Would it have been Aldreaan’s end if she hadn’t tried to help? In trying to save the galaxy, had she doomed her planet?

Her keycard opens any door on the ship. Any door except for one that might feel like home.

Tonight, she goes to the target range. Tonight, she goes in search of action, to fight past the regrets of the past.

If she had been a better shot, if she had dared to fight her way out of the Death Star sooner…

Would it have been the end?

The range is already occupied by another, one who comes close to being a ghost himself. Though, for Cassian, Leia thinks that resemblance is by choice. A spy who so often walks between life and death may find it easier to play at the latter than the former.

If she asked most of the soldiers on the ship, they’d tell her Captain Andor, along with his Rogues, were already dead.

If she asked Cassian himself, he would probably tell her that he had died a long time ago.

But she knew that both were lies. That now, after Scarif, Cassian had more life in his eyes than she had ever seen before.

She is both glad for him and jealous of him. How did he go forward, time and again, after his story came to an end? How did he dust off the remenats of Fest so that he could move forward to a brighter dawn?

How did he leave the past in the past?

He’s aware, now, that she’s staring at hi. He turns on his heel, every one of his motions precise. His warm eyes lock onto hers, his lips curving into the least sereve line they could make--Cassian, ghost or not, does not smile.

Except, perhaps, in her dreams.

“Pri-” Cassian stops himself. “Commander Or--”

“LEia,” she says, with an eyeroll directed both at him and not at all. She has no name to so many on this ship. At least he, of all people, should be able to call her by name.

“I’m surprised you’re not being followed by Captain Solo.”

“Han,” she says, refusing to give him a proper sounding name, when he’s anything but proper, “can choke on a bantha-bone for all I care.”

“I see.” Cassian finishes disassembling his blaster, before beginning the process of cleaning it. If she had thought there was a chance he is truly a ghost, the mundane action would scare even that doubt away. “So the affair is…”

“It wasn’t an affair.” Just a few, stupid, ill-timed, poorly-planned, kisses in hallways. But it was the best she’d ever get. No one wants a princess without a dowry, not even a homeless smuggler. Perhaps in dreams the two of them might have worked out… but this was no dream.

This was life after the end, and Leia knows that meant she would have to live it alone.

And even before the destruction of Alderaan, well, she’d had plenty of time to learn that no one wanted her then, either. Her people wanted her to rule, that was true, and the rebellion wanted her to lead, but no one wanted her.

She tells herself she’ll be fine with that, because she has no choice. If the Rebellion can’t afford to give her time to grieve a planet, they certainly won’t allow her to mourn a broken heart.

“I have found,” Leia says softly, as she sets up the holo targets, focusing on their glowing blue frames much more closely than she needs to right now, “that my presence complicates most things.”

“And why is that?”

“You said it yourself. You don’t know how to greet me. I’m neither princess nor commander.”

Her pistol fits in her palm better than anyone’s hand ever has. Leia fires one perfect shot, and then another. The targets morph in her view. They’re Tarkin, Vader, Troopers. They’re everyone, and they’re no one.

The princess is rescued. There should be no more monsters in the shadows.

Tears fill the corners of her eyes.

“You deserve better than Captain Solo,” Cassian says, or she thinks he might say. It doesn’t matter. Ghosts don’t deserve anything at all. “You shouldn’t be so alone, Leia.”

She speaks only after every target is gone. “My existence is enough to make most people uncomfortable. I remind them of Alderaan. Of what was lost.”

“That makes two of us.”

She looks at him only out of the corner of her eye as she presses the button to re-ignite the targets. In dreams, she has to face Tarkin a hundred times. Why should reality be any different? Only then, does she ask Cassian, “Why’s that?”

“Because my existence reminds people of all the dark things that must be done in the name of the light.”

Leia can’t deny his logic, and has seen the way the younger soldiers avoid him, heard the whispers. So, she focuses on the targets. One after another, after another. She gets mostly bullseyes, and he knows her well enough not to comment about it. Instead, he says, “angry at someone?”

“I guess.”

“You’re aiming for the jugular, not the head.”

“And I’m hitting it.”

“Your instructor would be proud.”

Leia’s lips curve into a tiny smile. At least she has not yet forgotten how to. “Thank him for me, then.” As if she didn’t still remember Cassian’s hands on her arms, teaching her how to hold the blaster steady. As if she didn’t hear his whisper in her ear each time she aimed.

As if all the time they spent together was nothing more than space dust, floating away from them both.

In dreams, those hands guided her hands in more than just aiming. They led her in dancing and held her while she cried.

In dreams, his honeyed whisper told her more wonderful things than anything reality could ever hold.

In dreams, she remembered the life she might have lived, if it hadn’t been the end.

Cassian reaches out his hand, brushes a curl of dark hair behind her ear. Leia hates herself for trembling, and more so, for putting down her blaster when he says. “Your tears are not about Solo, are they?”

Leia shakes her head.

He folds her in his arms and she clings to him. Holds him the way she’s never let herself hold anything, desperately, selfishly. Because she knows this moment is all too short. Because she knows now that good things never last.

And Cassian, she knows, is the very best of all good things.

His lips brush her forehead, and she feels the roughness of his beard more than the softness of the kiss. That’s all right. It’s him. That’s what matters. That he’s here, with her, for however long this tiny perfect moment lasts.

“He.. he wasn’t you but he was there and you were gone and…” And she was fine with settling, because that's all she deserves. In the end, settling was easier than hoping.

“When I said I didn't know how to greet you,” he whispers, “it is because I didn't know if I should apologize or thank you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Your courage got the plans to those who destroyed the Death Star.” His voice is so soft she strains to hear it. “But we took took long, failed so many ways…”

“You lived,” she says, her hands tightening in his shirt. “That’s victory enough.”

“Are you sure? Based on the glares I’ve received, I wasn’t sure.”

“That’s not fair.”

“No. It’s not. None of this is.” He pulls back, so she can see his face, see how in this small moment, he masks nothing. Every bit of his expression is heartbreakingly honest. “I lived, and--”

Lived and moved on. She’s no fool. She can read the story he’s only hinted at, the same story told by the little vignettes she’s seen, the kisses in hallways and the gentle whispers in meetings. The way their eyes always find each other in a crowded room.

No one ever looks _for_ Leia. They only ever look _to_ Leia. Depend on her for guidance, for leadership, and for hope. No one ever asks if she has any hope left for herself.

Which is good, because if they asked, she’d tell them the truth.

Leia nods. Sets her shoulders. “That’s fine. I’m fine. I’m… I’ll be just fine, thank you.”

“If that’s what you want.”

“What I _want?”_ she snaps. It’s that temper everyone comments on, everyone mocks behind her back. Because she’s just a short-tempered spoiled princess to them. They can’t see that all she is these days is ice wrapped in rage, can’t understand that it’s the anger and frustration that are the only emotions that haven’t betrayed her. “I wanted you. I want my home. I want my family. And it’s all gone now, isn’t it. Nothing’s ever coming back.”

Once you reach the end, you can never return.

“You’re right,” he says.Cassian doesn’t argue, doesn’t deny it, and doesn’t even attempt to pacify her. “It won’t come back. Nothing in our past will. But, the future? That’s still out there.”

“I highly doubt a princess would fit in your little crew.”

He plunges his hands in his pockets. “C’mon now, Rogue One’s reputation is based solely on how completely unlike of a team we are. You’d just be adding to that.”

Leia shakes her head. “Thank you. But I think we all know a princess doesn’t belong on a team.” And the last princess of Alderaan? Well, she doesn’t belong anywhere.

Cassian sighs. Closes his eyes for a moment, and Leia tenses, waiting for the rallying speech she knows is coming. He’s a recruiter after all. A recruiter, and a spy.

“I’d like to say you belong with me.” His voice is low, low enough she strains to hear it.

“But?”

“But the others…” He began.

“Won’t like me.” No one really likes her. She’s abrasive, and bossy, and a thousand other insults that seem to be both compliments for her work ethic and markers for why she’ll never have friends. She is good at nation-building, better at battle plans. She is terrible at friendship and worse at romantic plans.

She is too strong, too bold, too much for any one person. Her personality fills a whole Senate hall and no one has that amount of space in their heart for her.

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Then what?”

“They might…” He runs his hands through his hair, tousling it, so he looks more like the young man who used to be her favorite bodyguard. “I don’t know, Leia. I can’t speak for them.”

“I see.” She, on the other hand, will always speak for other people, and never for herself. “Then that’s that.”

“Leia.”

“What? What’s the solution, then, Cassian? We change my name, make the Rebellion lose its figurehead so I gain, what, a little family of rogues? We pretend I’m someone who knows _how_ to do… any of that?”

“You know how to care.”

“And Force damn it all, I wish I didn’t.”

He sighs, and pulls her back into his arms. Holds her tight. Kisses her forehead, softly. Chastely. Whispers, “I would give anything I could offer to make you happy.”

“I don’t want you to give,” she whispers back. “I want you to take. Take control. Tell me what to do. Tell me that you need me. That I matter to you, and you alone.” It’s selfish, it’s all selfish what she’s saying. She shouldn't be, she can’t be selfish. And yet…

There’s a long, long pause. “I need you, Leia. I need you to survive this war, to lead us all, and give me something to come home to.”

“What?”

“You’re not a figurehead to me. You’re all I want in my future. I fight for peace, yes, but there’s no peace I want if you’re not part of it.”

The words resonate deep within her, fill her with more hope and light than she had felt in ages, than she had felt since that bright, horrid, green light destroyed her home. “And the others?”

“They have ones they fight to protect, too.” He cups her cheek, stroking gently with his thumb. “When I thought… when I thought you were gone…”

“Don’t say it.” She cuts him off. “I’m here. You’re here. We survived.”

“So we did,” he replies, a ghost of a smile on his face. “May I ask you to keep doing so? Is that too bold of me?”

“It is very bold indeed, Captain,” she replies but mirrors that small smile. “For you, I shall try.”

He leans in and kisses her. Just once and only long enough that her words become a promise between them.

* * *

A promise they both live out, through adventures and trials, hopes, and despair. Eventually, the day of peace comes and eventually, all of the others, too, are there at their side. In the end, Leia becomes a Rogue and Cassian becomes a prince and all is as it should be.

In the end, it wasn’t the end at all for either of them.


End file.
